Fungi, begonias and stitching

A couple of days ago, I took these pictures of fungi and mosses on those fallen tree trunks, great place for them

Next day the yellow and orange ones were shriveled. Short lived. The storms knocked my butterfly bush sideways, but I've righted it and it looks fine now

and here's a pot with two kinds of begonias. They were several feet high, looking very scruffy and I cut them back all the way. They're outside in the shade of the butterfly bush, and making a comeback.

soon to come indoors,  when the ficus does. A couple more weeks yet,  since the weather's far from fall.

And I did get back to stitching, here with the current block, stitched in silk. Silk is the prima donna of threads, beautiful, difficult, slippery, demanding, but worth it.

Here the inner edge stitched in embroidery floss, the outer edge in silk

The dark pink shows up so differently in different lights. It's cerise, and looks very Indian with the fancy chartreuse stitching.

Here's where we are

Gary and little granddaughter came over the other day. She'd been visiting him, needed to shower, but he'd just finished grouting the bathroom, could she shower at my house? Well, of course! So he turned on the water to her preferred heat, and went home, because she could manage.

After her shower, she was looking at these blocks with interest, said she had a kit like that but hadn't tried it. Now maybe she will. She went off with a container of granola, new to her. 

So that was a nice interlude. I'm happy she was comfortable showering here, without her grandfather in the house. I know Gary has told both grandkids that when in doubt, they can come here. Nowadays that's quite a big deal.

Footnote to my 9/11 memories:

Up to then, I'd had a flourishing pet care service for 12 years, a lot of work, and an income I could live on. That day destroyed it. I had a lot of corporate clients who traveled all the time for work at short notice. One call to me and they were set to go. Many of them worked in and near the Towers, and some didn't survive, while corporate travel stopped completely for months. Others were transferred to a different city.

I had  vacationing clients also,  stranded all over the world, literally Alaska to New Zealand, frantically calling to find out if I was okay, and could I keep visiting until they made it home.  If course I could.

But after a month with close to zero bookings, I couldn't hang on and rebuild the client base. All  my frequent bookers, the real income stream, were gone, leaving only a group who only needed service for an annual vacation.  Not enough.

So I had to look for another way to earn, revved up my art workshop teaching and made a new living there, since I was known already, but now instead of a sideline it was the main thing. 

Pretty scary, to be honest,  starting  over in your sixties, but too young for Medicare and social security. I did own my condo, and I had to support several cats and birds and me, and somehow pay my health insurance. That took half my income, but I daren't go without.

On the good side, Handsome Partner and I, on 9/11,  decided to resume our relationship, life clearly demonstrated to be short, and we were a couple for the next ten years, till his death. 

I never depended on him for income, in case you wondered.  Heck, he was nearly as broke as me, his pet care business having gone, too.  I'd helped him  set it up after his health had forced him into early retirement from his research career. What a pair of hopeless cases! But life went wobbling on.

So in many ways, 9/11 was a watershed moment, where in many ways, life, for much of the world,  fell into Before and After.

Happy day,  everyone, I hope your After is good.

 

9/11, art still rules

 

This was local to me. Friends, clients, adult children of friends, in the Towers. My train station lot full of commuter cars of people who would never return, neighbors finally getting home, filthy, exhausted, two days later.

That morning I, and other artists were meeting to hang a group show. We all kept going, after the first strike,  still met, still hung the show, crying. We'd all separately decided that terrorists couldn't be allowed to interfere with art. We wouldn't give them the win.

In that spirit, here's a presentation of Indian trade cloth and cultural exchange, as promised yesterday.  I'm posting without commentary, since the slides are labeled and dated. Where pieces are not attributed, they're in the collection of the presenter.

One note: the elephant made up of monkeys, is a composite animal, a favorite Indian motif.

Happy day, everyone, there's always light and art and each other.